1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to aircraft avionics systems, and more particularly to a system for optimizing the pilot interface with the flight management system (FMS).
2. Description of the Related Art
Flight management systems (FMS′) for aircraft, which use a Control Display Unit (CDU) as the only pilot user interface, are inherently inefficient in some cases. These inefficiencies are manifested in terms of the amount of time, the number of steps and/or the entry method the pilot is forced to use to input/adjust flight plan parameters. This situation is further compounded when the input is made via the CDU while the displayed results are observed on the electronic map of a Multi-Function Display (MFD).
This is due in part to the distribution of the controls located on the CDU that are a combination of both dedicated hard keys and line select soft keys. In addition, the CDU user interface is limited to entry of discrete alphanumeric values using an alphanumeric keypad. Other factors include the small electronic display of the CDU which provides textual input/output data display only. The CDU text data has to be distributed among multiple pages and formats to provide all of the flight plan information due to the small display area with the corresponding graphical results being displayed elsewhere (i.e., on the MFD).
Because of these factors, using the CDU as the pilot interface for modifying flight plans sometimes has the disadvantage of high pilot workload for the following reasons:
The CDU requires significant amounts of heads-down time due to complexity of operation.
Several pilot actions are required to complete certain flight plan modifications.
The CDU requires multiple learned steps in a specific order to complete certain flight plan modifications.
For certain flight plan modifications which relate to information found on aeronautical charts, the pilot must either know from memory the correct alphanumeric identifier or visually locate the identifier on a paper/electronic chart before data entry into the CDU is possible.
Multiple pages must be re-accessed and multiple selections must be re-made on the CDU to select a different item from the same display lists after an active selection has been made. In addition, awareness of the active selection is lost since the display lists are context sensitive and updated to reflect the current selection only. In cases where it's desired to review the active selection from the list, the pilot must select yet other CDU pages.
Use of a CDU requires a division of pilot attention between two devices. These are the CDU which is a heads-down device and the electronic map displayed on an MFD which is a heads-up device.
Entry of the desired value into the CDU, especially when it may need adjustment, is by trial and error. A value is entered and the graphical result is displayed on the MFD. Another value is entered and the new graphical result is displayed on the MFD. These operations are repeated until the desired result is displayed on the electronic map of the MFD.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,856,864, issued to M. J. Gibbs, et al, entitled “Method and System For Entering Data Within a Flight Plan Entry Field,” discloses systems, apparatus and methods for entering data into a flight plan entry field which facilitates the display and editing of aircraft flight-plan data. In one embodiment, the invention provides a method for entering multiple waypoint and procedure identifiers at once within a single a flight plan entry field. In another embodiment, the invention provides for the partial entry of any waypoint or procedure identifiers, and thereafter relating the identifiers with an aircraft's flight management system to anticipate the complete text entry for display. In yet another embodiment, the invention discloses a method to automatically provide the aircraft operator with selectable prioritized arrival and approach routing identifiers by a single manual selection. In another embodiment, the invention is a method for providing the aircraft operator with selectable alternate patterns to a new runway.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,633,810, issued to H. M. Qureshi, et al, entitled “Graphical System and Method for Defining Pilot Tasks, Patterns and Constraints,” discloses various embodiments that provide dialog boxes in response to pilot commands so that task parameters may be input or modified. Pilot tasks include “direct-to”, “hold”, “procedure turn”, “cross with flyover”, “show info”, “orbit”, “radial”, and the like. According to various embodiments, certain dialog boxes include graphical functionality and incorporate ‘human factors’ enhancements such that information is efficiently presented in a manner that corresponds to air traffic control instructions.
The embodiments of the prior art reduce certain aspects of the high pilot workload and inefficiencies associated with an FMS CDU user interface but are still lacking in many areas. The various embodiments of the present invention further reduce the high pilot workload and are more efficient in some of these other areas, using different methods and techniques as compared with the prior art, as will be disclosed below.